Thanks to how consumers have developed a positive perception towards smaller players, influencer marketing is no longer a blue-chip exclusive. Nowadays, micro-influencers gain more traction vs. A-listers.
People love their online content. The most active “netizens” come from the Philippines, where the average daily social media usage is at four hours—the highest worldwide, according to Statista.
However, what social media users probably love more are regular updates from their most trusted influencers. These are people who appear relatable enough to foster a fanbase, but curate picture-perfect lives and personas convincingly enough that they’ve managed to redefine how we do marketing nowadays. As regular social media users turn to influencers for opinions and advice, the benefits of influencer marketing for businesses in 2022 continue to thrive despite present challenges.
Believe it or not, the strategy of tapping influencers to be brand advocates has been around for centuries (remember how the gladiators of Rome promoted their royal main events?). Of course, then came the new digital age, when the term ‘social influencers’ became part of our digital marketing lexicon.
Even before moviegoers saw the film Ready Player One, the pandemic has practically pushed most of us into a virtual world. An oasis wherein we consume different content from various talking heads for information, entertainment, or an escape from our daily lives. Large brands know this, and most have already allocated a considerable slice of their marketing budgets for influencer strategies.
This 2022, influencer marketing is about to take the next giant leap to bring more benefits to brands. Fortunately, we’re here to let you in on what’s new!
The 3 Types of Social Media Influencers
To get the complete picture of how influencer marketing strategies work, you’ll first have to get to know who these social ambassadors are:
This refers to the ‘newbie’ in the world of ‘influencing’. A micro has over 3,000 followers but less than 10,000 in one social media platform. They’re a regular type of person who shares content—usually reviews or walkthroughs—that most members within a niche community look up to as reliable and trustworthy.
- The Macro-influencer (10K to 1 million followers)
An influencer reaches macro status when they get a follower count of 10,000 to 1 million. These are content creators with at least a 3-percent engagement rate and are usually more commercially prominent within a specific niche.
- The Mega-influencer (more than 1 million followers)
Now, these are likely the people that first come to your mind when you hear the word ‘influencer’. Consider this group as A-list celebrities who can create surefire traction on both social media and real-life that even non-fans know who they are. In order to be a mega-influencer, you have to get more than 1 million followers.
Now that you know who your friendly-neighborhood influencers are, let’s discuss why they are essential to your business.
8 Reasons Why Influencer Marketing Still Works in 2022
1. Social influencers can build consumer trust
Trust is the number one reason you’d want to hire an influencer to promote your brand. Today’s consumers have developed a good ear and intuition on which reliable individuals they should believe online. 88 percent said they trust influencers as much as a personal friend would recommend a brand. Of course, this trust translates to higher ROIs.
Seeing trusted influencers use and review your products then, later on, endorse them pulls more lookalike customers to your brand. Effective social influencers can also establish communities that further create discussions and position you as a top-of-mind choice.
Think of social influencers as today’s walking and talking billboards. They can quickly spread valuable word-of-mouth shoutouts about your brand to the right audiences!
2. No ad blocking software can prevent influencers
With 45.3 percent of online users in the Philippines resorting to ad blocking apps to filter their content, your ads may fall short of appearing on their feeds.
However, posts from social influencers cannot be blocked on any platform, even if they appear to be promoting a brand. Online users will see their content and might even end up on your landing page. That is if they find the posts interesting enough.
The more people your influencer marketing strategy reaches the more chances for lead generation. That’s because social influencers can generate talk and engagement as long as they are preaching to the choir.
Like paid ads, influencer marketing can also be channeled to different groups. The difference is that most of these groups are where your influencer enjoys a strong following and where each post is ad block-free.
Of course, make sure your influencer’s posts both align with your messages and the platform’s community guidelines. Some influencers can be flagged if they commit violations which can be a huge setback to your influencer marketing strategy.
3. Influencers can tug at consumers’ heartstrings
Elite marketers know that human elements in their creatives count a lot. So, just imagine to what extent your trustworthy influencer can actually do to persuade your target audiences.
Here’s one influencer marketing example to consider:
A user types ‘makeup tips’ on the search bar and chances upon your beauty influencer. The user clicks play and learns a lot from your influencer’s content that she felt compelled to hit ‘subscribe.’ She follows your influencer and shares your content on her social media pages.
Soon, you find your website traffic increasing simply because that user shared her interests with other online users. In turn, those user recipients also shared your content farther into their own pages.
As you can see, the imperative element in this influencer marketing example is how well your social influencer can engage more people. How clear your brand message also plays a vital role in driving traffic to your site and increasing your leads.
On average, 2022 influencer marketing strategies’ conversion rate remains at 2.5 percent, which is not bad. As long your target market can relate to your influencer, consider the succeeding content you produce fodder waiting to be consumed by more online users. And engaging more lookalike audiences eventually turns into more conversions.
4. Influencers already have a significant following
These days, even micro-influencers within a specific niche have already established a loyal fan base. That makes half of your work cut out for you once you hire them because the engagement is already there.
The key, moving forward, is to maintain a steady flow of quality content. It also doesn’t help to oversell the brand because you want to keep the consumers’ trust towards your ‘genuine’ influencers.
For example, take the influencer marketing strategy done by SHEIN, an online fashion company. The brand tapped the influencer marketing platform AnyTag to help drive awareness and engagement for the brand’s app in the country.
The brand started posting genuine influencer-generated content on various social media channels, including clothing hauls, customer reviews, different short-form videos, and quirky filters. What resulted was a staggering reach of over 1.3 million viewers and 200,000 likes for influencer-generated content.
The main thing to remember from the influencer marketing strategy example above is to consider your influencers’ fan base and loyalty levels. After that, note their ability to generate their own content, which can push your brand farther into the digital space.
5. You can easily track your influencer’s success rate
Speaking of your influencer’s ability to generate content, it’s also easy to review key performance indicators via Google Analytics.
If that’s not enough, online tools such as Coremetrics or Adobe Solutions’ Omniture help measure customer journey figures. From the backlinks created from your influencers’ accounts to your landing pages to determining the best performing posts, online tools have got you covered.
Why is this important? Analyzing your influencer’s KPIs is crucial because it helps you scale your marketing budget according to the highest potential ROI.
6. Influencer marketing strategies can be automated
Most influencer marketing strategies also rely on influencer-centric platforms such as Publicfast or Creatrify to automate repetitive marketing tasks. However, these platforms can also help you find the right social influencers for your brand, plus filters to narrow your search.
Reviewing influencer clout, background, and scores makes the ‘getting to know you’ phase faster. But the best thing about automating your influencer strategies this 2022 is that you can leverage the power of artificial intelligence for better insights. You can then use those insights to improve your messaging, creative development, and outreach.
7. Influencers can establish your brand as a thought leader
Influencer marketing strategies for 2022 also tend to focus on more traditional public relations tactics like thought leadership. Most brands hire social influencers to establish a more substantial presence online and push their credibility among new followers.
One good PR-focused influential marketing example is how a blog with a million followers utilizes backlinks to increase visits to lesser followed blogs. Since visitors don’t know that the other blog has fewer followers, they won’t mind as long as their trusted social influencer directed them into it.
Today’s consumers are eager to learn more about what interests their influencers. Getting more backlinks to your site from authoritative figures establishes you as a trustworthy band that can stand out in a more genuine and non-commercial kind of way.
8. Good consumer-influencer relationships result in improved ROI
This 2022, numbers say that micro-influencers have better chances to strike a chord with consumers than big-time celebrities. Part of the reason for this phenomenon is how consumers choose individuals who share their same interests and backgrounds, as opposed to the harder-to-reach statuses that movie actors or athletes possess. Plus, most micro-influencer relationships tend to grow better over time, resulting in better customer lifetime values for the long term.
Given this unique fact, it’s best to align your objectives with your micro-influencer and nurture the partnership towards a more flourishing win-win situation. You get more audiences to follow your brand while they earn or get more products they genuinely believe in.
Lastly, it’s best to forge influencer marketing partnerships this early in 2022, as Adweek reported that rates have been on the uptick in recent years.
Bank on Influence to Grow Your Brand
Don’t say we didn’t tell you. Social media influence is today’s top-rated currency, and in order to be ahead of the competition, you shouldn’t get left behind.
Influencer marketing strategies are just some of the many ways you can use digital marketing for your brand’s benefit.
